Denver Nuggets NBA Power Rankings: Week 15

Each week, Nugg Love takes a look around the web to see where the Denver Nuggets rank on the latest edition of the NBA Power Rankings

What a week for this Denver Nuggets team! Anybody down on their play now doesn’t see the potential dripping off this roster. For the first time this season, they start off a month with a victory. It was also a great sign to not head into February on a big losing slide like their seven game skid going into December and losses in seven of eight to start January.

Instead, the Nuggets grabbed one of the most dominating victories of the year Monday at home against the Toronto Raptors. Their 112-93 smack down depicted the breakout performance for Nikola Jokic who ended up with 27 points and 14 rebounds including scoring the team’s first 11 points. It was an end-to-end dominating performance for Denver who ended the Raptors 11 game win streak.

A hitch in their step hit Wednesday as the Nuggets fell to the Jazz for the third time in a row this year. Putting up only 81 points, they still haven’t broke the 90 point threshold against Utah this season and they haven’t been able to figure out the stifling defense the Jazz frontcourt tosses out.

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The last two losses against the Jazz were followed by another loss, but this time Denver bounced back to beat the Chicago Bulls in a 115-110 shootout. The Nuggets put up 42 points in the fourth quarter to complete a huge comeback behind Danilo Gallinari’s 33 points. Jimmy Butler going down with an injury took the headlines, but the Nuggets continuing to put up gigantic quarters to pull off wins should be right there with it.

Getting off to a fast start in New York, the Nuggets let a huge first half lead slip by the third quarter, but battled to hold it down in Madison Square Garden. Mudiay played an amazing fourth quarter scoring nine of his 15 points. He also ended with nine assists and zero turnovers. He went for 12 points and 7 assists a game last week with only 1.5 turnovers. The elevated play of those around him seems to be wearing off on the kid.

A 3-1 record, including beating the number two and six seeds in the east, showed the league, this Denver team has a lot in the tank right now. Jokic and Mudiay playing like two of the best rookies in the league and Danilo Gallinari returning to superstar form made for one of the best runs of the year thus far.

The rest of the internet read into this week in a very similar manner:

The Nuggets made their highest jump all season and of the rest of the NBA in week 15. Peaking at 19^th on CBS and NBA.com, Denver finally passed the teams they have been trying to for about eight weeks now. Teams like the Magic, Knicks, Wizards, and Kings.

They’ve made the jump to the next tier, the middle class, and if they can stay there through the end of the season, they will be knocking on the western conference playoffs as early as next season.

Nikola Jokic is the obvious talk of the town right now and most of the league is buzzing about the 20 year-old. If this

play came earlier in the season, he would have a ton of hype for the rookie of the year award. His 15 points and 10 rebounds per game over the last week and a half have analysts all over the country crazy drooling about what’s to come.

There may be a domino effect on the trading block for some of the other Nuggets big men, now that they know they have a bona fide stud in the making.

Matt Moore of CBS Sports noted that winners of four out of six, the Nuggets other two losses were only by a combined eight points. They are battling in every game and the competition is awesome to watch. With the All-Star break coming up, the Nuggets have a couple games to keep trending upwards.

They start off playing a back-to-back in Brooklyn. Going up against a team that’s won four games since the start of 2016, these are the games that the Nuggets need to win to keep up their success. They beat some of the best last week, now they need to handle business to prove they can win a “gimme”.

They head over to Detroit before the break to try and sweep the season series against the Pistons. In their last matchup, Will Barton had one of his few bad games this season. They also gave up too many outside shots. With the Pistons yo-yoing around the standings, we don’t know which team the Nuggets will get Wednesday night, but if they bring their “A” game from the entire roster, they will handle business.

Next: Three Nuggets Trade Scenarios

Two more wins heading into the time off and the Denver Nuggets would continue to thrive leading into the latter part of February. This is a vital segment for Michael Malone and his boys to execute. Nobody can argue the incredible transformation and development over the course of the year. I expect to see that trend continue upwards.